Please Forgive Me
by Victoria to Worthing
Summary: Prequel to Borrowing Your Heart. Kind of sad, I'm afraid, but oh well! Please review, I'm already working on sequels!


Author's note: Here is the prequel to "Borrowing Your Heart", and also, I have an idea for a sequel! Well, okay, actually three sequels! Little one-shot sequels, I mean. I'm already working on them, they're a lot of fun, so if you review (please do!), please tell me if you think I should put them up! 

I hope the formatting works properly this time! And, oh, yes, I kind of named this after a David Gray song. It's called "Please Forgive Me", and I love it, but it has nothing to do with boat-stealing, LOL.

Disclaimer: (This goes for "Borrowing Your Heart" and any sequels I put up, as well.) I don't own the movie _Pirates of the Caribbean_, any of its characters, or any of the actors involved in said movie. Disney owns the movie, the actors own themselves, and this is just my fun little expansion on the lovely fandom they've made for us!

Anamaria was used to the sun, hard work, and rough language; she had better balance on sea than on land; she had big dreams, but a very small boat.

And on this particular day, she was trying to make that boat look as good as it could. Many of the sailors passing by hooted and called at her.

"Did you build that for your dollies to play in?"

"Hey, little girl, better be careful if you get that thing out on the open ocean! I've seen minnows that were bigger than that walnut-shell!"

She ignored them, only scrubbing the sides of the boat harder, pressing her lips together to hold the insults in. She could beat them up later; right now she was working.

A bucket of paint was sitting on the dock next to the pole her watercraft was tethered to. She was planning to haul the tiny ship up on land and paint it sky blue. It was sure to give the men more license to mock her, but she didn't care. She could just imagine it bobbing on the waves, looking like a bit of sky caught in the water, with white sails like clouds. She smiled dreamily as she continued cleaning.

Her daydream was harshly interrupted by a sudden deluge. For a moment, she thought a wave had splashed her, then she realized that the liquid had come from the opposite direction—and that it was bright blue.

"My paint!" She leaped up, nearly falling out of the boat despite her good sea legs, cerulean oozing off her hair, fingers, the hem of her shirt. She looked up at the dock in a rage, and standing there next to the overturned paint bucket was a very guilty-looking man.

Tall, dark-haired, dressed in a style both sloppy and gaudy, he was handsome and had an air of dramatic confidence, but at the moment, Anamaria was too angry to be impressed.

"You clod, are ye blind? I've been working for hours, and now it's all ruined and all my paint is thrown all over and don't you think I have a hard enough time already without all my plans being spoiled?" She felt on the verge of crying in frustration, but wrinkled up her face and blinked her eyes rapidly to hold the tears back.

"I'm sorry, sir, uh, I mean miss! I didn't see the bucket."

"Well, maybe if you'd watch where you were going—" she stomped angrily, making the boat sway and almost throw her out. The clumsy stranger reached out and grabbed her hands.

"If you're going to have a tantrum, have it on land, love. I don't want to have your drowning on my head." He helped her up onto the dock. "There now, I'm very sorry, what can I do to make it up to you?"

She sighed. "At the moment, I can't think of anything that would make me feel much better." She covered her eyes with her hands. "I think I'm getting a headache, too."

"I know a good cure for that. Come on, I'll buy you a drink."

"No thank you, I don't accept pity drinks." She glared at him through a little chink in her fingers.

"It's not pity, it's reimbursement! I'm the one causing your bad day, correct?"

"Well, yes, mostly."

"So I owe it to you."

"I suppose so…."

"Come on, then! Oh, yes, and I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, by the way." He swept his hat off his head with a flourish.

"Anamaria Santos," she replied, smiling a little. He was very handsome, and, no-nonsense as she was, she wasn't immune to the common downfall of womanhood.

~*~*~*~

Even as Jack escorted Anamaria (who'd managed to get most of the paint off) toward the nearest tavern, he couldn't get his mind off the problem at hand, which was, of course, finding a means of transportation to Port Royale, where he would commandeer a ship and exact his REVENGE on Barbossa! (He could hardly think these dramatic thoughts without a dastardly chuckle.)

His thoughts were focused on the little boat he'd "ruined." It was small, of course, but hey, he couldn't be picky. He had a far better chance of getting away with taking a tiny boat seemingly owned by one simple girl, than making off with some big fancy affair with a whole crew. He decided to check Anamaria's boat over later; it might serve his purpose well.

He acted his most charming to the young lady in question; he didn't want to give her reason for suspicion. He bought her an ale, which she drank thirstily and without ceremony. He ordered rum and watched her with amusement. He had grouped women into three categories in his mind—the snotty, upper-crust set; the middle-class, sickeningly pure and sweet type; and the women of the street (who had been most of his acquaintances). Anamaria was unclassifiable; when he first saw her, he hadn't noticed she even _was _a woman!

A few sailors he'd met his last time on Tortuga passed by. "'Ey, Jack, 'ow's it goin'?" one crowed, clapping him on the shoulder. 

"Well, if it isn't Anamaria," the other said in a sly tone, the slow, rusty gears of his mind obviously turning desperately in search of a put-down.

"I thought worms like you only came out at night," she answered coolly, taking a particularly loud slurp of her drink.

"What, we haven't even insulted you yet!" the other sailor cried.

"It was a pre-emptive strike, then." She finished her drink and set the mug down loudly.

Her vocabulary seemed to be a bit too much for the sailors, so they chatted with Jack only briefly, then bid their farewells. When Anamaria glanced over at Jack, he was grinning widely.

"Do you always chop people to pieces before they've said ten words to you?"

"No, I usually let them talk first, but it's just not worth the time with those two."

Jack guffawed. "You're most likely right."

"Can I have another ale?"

"Weeell…." Jack said in an overdramatically pensive tone.

"You spilled quite a _lot _of paint, remember!"

"All right then. Another ale for the lady!" he called to the bartender, who brought the drink quickly, but not without a snide comment.

"Psh, what lady?" he snorted.

Anamaria, instead of getting mad as Jack would have expected, just laughed. "Quite right!"

"You're quite a strange girl, you know that?" Jack exclaimed.

"Yep." She was preoccupied with her drink again.

"Can I see your boat?"

"Sure thing, but didn't you see it as you doused it in paint?"

"Well, yes, but I didn't quite catch all the details, you know."

She beamed at him over her mug. "I can imagine."

A few minutes later, they were standing in the infamous boat, Anamaria bragging roundly about every detail of the vessel. She'd made it herself, and couldn't have loved it more if it was her child, she often thought.  
Jack listened and nodded approvingly. _Sounds pretty decent. This might work out! _he thought to himself.

When she was finally done singing the boat's praises, Anamaria gave him a radiant smile. "So what do you think?"

"She's quite a piece of work. Lovely!"

"And she'll be blue soon, once I buy another bucket of paint," she said pointedly, receiving nothing but a sheepish smirk in reaction to her comment.

"I was thinking," Jack said in his most seductive voice. "Will you meet me tonight?"

"For what?" Anamaria asked suspiciously. She was no fool, not after years of being propositioned by the men of this low-class island.

"Just for dinner. Just to see you. Please?" 

_Why does he have to look so good? _she thought, trying to ignore his magnetism and its almost tangible pull. 

"Well, yes, I guess I could manage," she said finally, trying to sound reluctant.

"Good, then. Meet me at 8 o'clock, at the Treasure Chest?"

"All right."

"I have things to do in town, but I look forward to seeing you then," Jack said, stepping up onto the dock and giving her a gracious bow.

"All right! I'll see you," she called back, admiring the view of him walking away.

~*~*~*~

She arrived at the arranged spot exactly on time, but Jack wasn't there. She hadn't pegged him as the punctual type, so she wasn't too surprised. She sat down serenely. She was wearing a dress, for once, and feeling rather nice. 

Thirty minutes later, she was feeling less than charitable, in fact pretty angry. Just then, someone called her name.

"Excuse me, miss, are you Anamaria?" She turned; it was only a waiter.

"Um, why, yes." She tried to remember if this was the restaurant she'd been banned from when she punched a guy out.

"I have a message for you." He pulled a scrap of paper out of his sleeve and stuck it in her hand, and she nodded but didn't offer a tip.

The note was in ornate, if rather messy script and simply read:

__

Please forgive me  
~Jack~

She was puzzled. Did that mean he couldn't come? Most likely. Deciding this was the case, she went to the small boardinghouse she lived at and changed back into her breeches. No use wasting time; she'd get to work on the painting. 

She spent the duration of the walk to the docks trying to convince herself that she wasn't disappointed, that she didn't care, that Jack Sparrow wasn't the most handsome man she'd seen in a long time.

When she reached the spot where her boat was usually moored, it was empty. She thought maybe the men had moved it as a joke, and ran down the docks, checking each space, but to no avail. Her boat was gone.

Then finally, she remembered the words she'd read a few minutes earlier—"_Please forgive me."_

Now she knew the true meaning of the note, and she wandered back to the spot where her boat—her baby—had been and sat there, staring out across the sea.

He'd asked her out to be sure she wouldn't be at the docks.

He'd set her up.

He'd used her.

She pulled her knees against her chest and leaned her forehead on them. She didn't look up until her tears had dried; no use appearing weak.

She climbed to her feet and walked slowly back toward home.

Jack Sparrow would pay.

But angry as she was at him, she was even more furious at herself.

She couldn't quite manage to hate him.

A/N: Whoa, that was depressing! But now you see why she was so mad at him in the movie, ha, he didn't just take the boat, he led her on! Tsk, tsk, so mean!

Don't worry, all the sequels are much happier! I'm already working on them. I hope y'all want them, because they are way fun to write so far! Please review!


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